Secret Schallplatten & CDs

Review: These days you are as likely to find articles entitled Is 'The Classical' By The Fall Racist? as you are glowing reviews of this album. Sure, times have changed, and modern attitudes are different to what they were when this album was released, but it's up to you to decide if that diminishes the music. The Fall's fourth studio record is best exemplified by the anthemic title track and the lyrics point to the band's hatred of the music industry when it was written. The late Mark E Smith said, "It was our way of saying 'fuck off!' to those people."

Review: Glittering is not really a word that comes to mind when you think of legendary experimental outfit The Fall but their career was certainly just that. This special live album certainly shows that and comes with some special liner notes as well as being pressed up to nice heavyweight 180g vinyl. It includes tracks from across their whole discography and all served up with that realness, rawness and sense of spite and visceral energy that defined the band with tracks like 'Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul' and 'Why Are People Grudgeful?' sounding as good as always.

Review: We all lost a big one in 2018 with the death of Mark E. Smith. One of the most prolific songwriters of the preceding decades, and the only constant member of The Fall, he channelled humour of the disenfranchised, rage of the people, punk sensibilities and experimental tendencies to create something that genuinely sounded fresh. Amazingly, it still did by the time he bid us farewell. That's some longevity of vitality, and when a band has such a lifespan it's almost impossible to even consider a Best Of type release. White Lightening is as close as you'll get, then, focusing on ten tracks recorded by the outfit, in various iterations, between 1978 and 2001 - amazingly, charting two-thirds of the 40 year story in a way which, while not necessary expansive, really conveys exactly what they were about at different points in that career, and throughout their entire era-spanning run.